English and Spanish Dictionary, Thesaurus and Spanish to English Translator

Main meanings of flag in English

flag1

noun

1A piece of cloth or similar material, typically oblong or square, attachable by one edge to a pole or rope and used as the symbol or emblem of a country or institution or as a decoration during public festivities.

‘the American flag’

‘Following a death, white banners, flags, and other decorations are put up according to the status of the deceased.’

‘Scotland's parliament may be a year behind schedule and massively overspent, but that will not get in the way of creating a new flag for the troubled institution.’

‘The flag flew from every public building, from every municipal flagpole, and from every structure of consequence in the land.’

‘Regimental colors, State flags, and organization or institutional flags are to be dipped as a mark of honor.’

‘As I said, even in my day they used to have the flags just outside the public schools, and presumably still do.’

‘Across the country, flags over public buildings and royal residences were flying at half-mast.’

‘Prior to the mayor's edict, it was expected that the banner would fly on the same pole as the US flag along with a banner commemorating American prisoners of war.’

‘He stands at the top of the incline beside the Canadian flag, grasping the rope and displaying great physical strength as well as moral fortitude.’

‘A three-judge panel entered the courtroom and sat beneath its only decorations, a Peruvian flag and a crucifix.’

‘A few years earlier, the magazine had sponsored a largely successful campaign to sell American flags to public schools.’

‘The flag is a symbol of indigenous and campesino movements.’

‘All public buildings display the flag, as do many private homes.’

‘Near the bottom, he wiped his brow before tying the other end of the rope to an American flag.’

‘So he reluctantly changed it for one I had made for his birthday which shows the British and Phillipine flags conjoined, their poles placed together as a symbol of the friendship between our two countries.’

‘Attempts to supplant the earlier symbolism, including the flag and motto, were popularly rejected.’

‘Obviously corporates will be allowed to fly their banners and flags to mark off their piece of the battleground.’

‘It's the lead article in the music section, spread out over a full page with no adverts, with little national flags for each country, and even the bookies' odds for each song mentioned.’

‘If a student wears the national flag of his own country he will be suspended or expelled from school.’

‘We used the Olympic flag to march in the opening ceremony.’

‘I have seen no reluctance on behalf of the Scottish and Welsh parts of this country to fly their national flags on the designated patron saint's day.’

1.1Used in reference to one's home country or its system of beliefs and values.

‘he pledged allegiance to the flag’

‘One reason why oaths are more common in America may be that American children are brought up to swear their allegiance to the flag, so the concept of affirming their beliefs is less alien than to British students.’

‘They think it's inappropriate to mix government and God in the way it now exists in the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag.’

‘This small shareholder asked if he and the board members would be willing to rise and pledge allegiance to the flag?’

‘The press is a bit misinformed: it's a young country of immigrants, of Poles and Germans who happen to live there and pledge allegiance to the flag.’

‘When I was young, I was puzzled as to why we would pledge allegiance to a flag.’

‘The deeply rooted victim syndrome has been manipulated over the past year by the mainstream media in order to rally the public around the flag.’

‘For example he will be competing in his third Olympics under three different flags.’

‘Do we want to live separately under separate flags only occasionally mixing with each other in ordinary every day events?’

1.2The ensign carried by a flagship as an emblem of an admiral's rank.

‘Hawke first hoisted his flag at Spithead’

‘Admiral Jellicoe flew his flag in the battleship HMS Iron Duke at the Battle of Jutland in 1916.’

‘With Admiral Togo flying his flag in the British-built battleship Mikasa, a strong naval force moved into position.’

‘The early ensigns were striped flags, some in the green and white of the Tudor Royal Livery colours, some red and white, some in other livery colours.’

‘Leading the Japanese Fleet was Admiral Heihachiro Togo, who flew his flag in the battleship Mikasa.’

‘He has commanded in every rank from lieutenant to vice admiral, and has flown his flag in all three of the Navy's aircraft carriers.’

‘The title went to Her Majesty, and with it yet another flag - the Admiralty flag of a gold anchor on red.’

2A small piece of cloth attached at one edge to a pole and used as a marker or signal in various sports.

‘the flag's up’

‘When the home keeper gathered the ball on the edge of his area the assistant referee vigorously waved his flag, signalling that his hands were outside.’

‘He is released on the right and Saudi fans start to get excited but the linesman quickly raises his flag to signal off-side.’

‘In the ensuing confusion, he managed to win the race following a wrong flag signal by a panicked marshal.’

‘The striker had spent most of his evening failing to dodge the offside flag.’

‘The Paraguayans race off to celebrate what would have been the 2,000th goal in a World Cup finals… until the flag goes up a good 30 seconds late.’

‘He is played through one-on-one, unaware the linesman has his flag up for offside.’

‘The guy holding the flag pulled it down signaling goal.’

‘Did you practice waving the green flag as the honorary starter for the Pennsylvania 500 at Pocono Raceway.’

‘No, just an offside flag - which looked mighty harsh on the replay.’

‘Davison made a blinding reaction save from Abbey after 79 minutes but the flag was up for offside against the striker.’

‘He looked a certain scorer at the flag, to ensure the Halifax outfit were nilled.’

‘He had his flag up for offside, although nobody could have been interfering with play to any significant degree!’

‘If the team representative does not display the green flag to signal the start of a qualification attempt, the car will not be charged with an attempt and must return to the pit lane.’

‘They screamed for an offside flag which never came.’

‘This flag indicates that the racing event is over or concluded.’

‘He was just about to put the ball into the empty net when a flag was raised indicating handball.’

‘The forward tried to rectify matters by turning and drilling the ball over the line, but by then the flag had been raised, penalising him for straying offside.’

2.1A drawing or symbol resembling a flag, used as a marker.

‘golf courses are indicated by a numbered flag on the map’

‘She had taken a world map, stuck in flags where she had already been, and pinned in all the places she wanted to go.’

‘My stats package thoughtfully puts a national flag next to each country domain as it pops up on the server so it was easy to spot one I did not recognize.’

2.2A small paper badge given to people who donate to a charity appeal in the street.

‘My own tests have been conducted at supermarkets while I have been selling flags for a charity.’

2.3A mechanism that can be raised to indicate that a taxi is for hire.

3Computing A variable used to indicate a particular property of the data in a record.

‘Thereby, the flag is recorded on the effective data area.’

‘During event registration, specific flags indicate whether a handler is to be executed inside a process.’

‘Don't ever delete a record - mark them for deletion with a flag, and then archive them periodically.’

‘When reading a modified record one should check the attribute flag to see if this record needs to be deleted.’

‘This will let you watch the execution of a program to determine any gaps, and is especially useful if used in conjunction with a debug flag.’

verbflags, flagging, flagged

[with object]

1Mark (an item) for attention or treatment in a specified way.

‘the spellcheck program flags any words that are not in its dictionary’

‘The only thing it lets me do with a button is spell check, and the only word it's ever flagged for me as misspelled was not misspelled.’

‘The program flags possible tax deductions and includes a flexible spending calculator.’

‘A match was found and the program flagged the info and forwarded it to the Early Warning sub-system.’

‘For instance, the program will flag quotations and other matching text that have been adequately sourced.’

‘This comes in handy if you want to ensure that potentially offensive words are flagged as misspellings.’

‘Another very nice feature are the flags that allow you to flag emails that need attention so that the days of marking emails as ‘unread’ are gone too.’

‘It wasn't very good anyway, being based, it seems, on an American kindergarten dictionary and thus any word over 2 syllables or seven letters was automatically flagged.’

‘We used the spell checker to flag misspellings or nonstandard abbreviations or military/vendor terminology.’

‘Use folders or labels to flag messages for follow-up action.’

‘It is able to authenticate the caller's identity, or to flag possible impostors, with a high degree of accuracy.’

‘Both programs allow you to see what it was that caused them to flag a particular piece of email as spam.’

‘Additionally, the strategy mapping instruction required flagging the missing element in the problem with a question mark.’

‘One of the recommendations was that deaths should be monitored by flagging the health records of residents.’

‘The danger tags employees were supposed to use to flag valves, indicating their open status, were rarely used.’

‘Using software to prepare bids heads off mistakes because the program takes care of calculations and will flag missed entries.’

2.1flag someone/something offWave a flag at someone or something as a starting signal.

‘the vintage car fiesta will be flagged off by the minister for tourism’

‘More than 150 of Ireland's top rally cars will be flagged off from the hotel.’

‘The train services will be flagged off on August 25.’

‘This year, the battle has proved as compelling as any since the 60 cyclists were flagged off on the outskirts of Paris on 1 July 1903.’

‘The teams had been flagged off about 4 months ago.’

‘The annual Conference will be flagged off on January 22 for three days.’

‘The next half of the rally will be flagged off by the Prime Minister.’

‘When the rally was flagged off there were just four students.’

‘According to a press note of army, the rally was flagged off by the two men.’

‘At 10 a.m., the car rally was flagged off from the park, and the colourful caravan, on its way, attracted people lazing around in their homes.’

‘Besides, a cycle rally was flagged off with an aim of creating awareness among the public on maintaining good health.’

‘Organised by the Southern Army Command, the cycle expedition was flagged off by Maj.’

‘From there on the team would proceed to Greece, Italy, France, Spain and Morocco, before reaching the final stop in England, where it was flagged off on August 6.’

‘The first competitor will be flagged off at 7 p.m. on September 8 and the other competitors will be flagged off at two minute intervals from then onwards.’

‘The first vehicle will be flagged off by an official of the Hatton National Bank.’

2.2no object(of an official) raise a flag to draw the referee's attention to a breach of the rules in soccer, rugby, and other sports.

‘the goalkeeper brought down Hendrie and a linesman immediately flagged’

‘The referee's assistant flagged for handball outside the area and had the result been in doubt the keeper might have been sent off.’

‘When the ball did eventually make it into the Aberdeen goal, the assistant referee had flagged for offside.’

‘They held firm until an assistant referee flagged for a penalty that defied belief.’

‘Even so, they could have been two up when he had the ball in the net only for the linesman to flag for offside.’

‘As it happens, it wouldn't have counted even if Alberto had got it - the linesman had flagged for offside.’

‘His outlook could hardly have been helped by the cancelling of a perfectly good goal just after the quarter-hour, the linesman flagging for offside.’

‘When the assistant referee refused to flag, the Dutchman angled a low shot across the goalkeeper and inside the far post.’

‘He nodded the ball into the back of the net, only for the assistant referee to flag for offside.’

‘Officials are paid to make decisions and he flagged straight away.’

‘The linesman had flagged to say the deflected shot should have been ruled out for offside but the referee overruled him, and this goal proved to be the turning point.’

‘However things got even more bizarre in the second half when he fell over while going for a high ball and the linesman flagged for a penalty.’

‘But Taylor's anger was not directed at the referee but at the assistant referee, who flagged for the incident.’

‘He's flagged for offside, even though replays show that he clearly wasn't.’

‘The trouble started last Sunday after a 22-8 loss that saw them get flagged for 11 penalties.’

‘That's when he reaches and gets flagged with ill-timed holding penalties.’

3Provide or decorate with a flag or flags.

‘The day started off with the field committee flagging out the field and preparing dressing rooms and signage.’

3.1Register (a vessel) in a particular country, under whose flag it then sails.

‘Only one U.S. flagged vessel will be changing their cruising plans.’

‘But, your Honour, what we submit in relation to the conventions is that here you have a vessel which is flagged, crewed and owned by foreign people and foreign companies.’

‘That is why vessels are required under international law to have flags, and a State by flagging a vessel assumes responsibility with things which occur on that vessel, even when it is in the territorial waters of another State.’

‘Specifically, the authorities required U.S. flagged vessels to be U.S.-owned and built and reserved coastal trades for U.S. registered ships.’

‘Nine foreign fishing vessels, all Indonesian flagged, were apprehended and escorted to Gove by Customs and the Navy, the Senators said.’

‘‘We had problems with a ship called the Australian Bridge which is flagged in Panama,’ said Matt.’

‘It had also booked another tanker, the Cypriot flagged Presnya to carry 28,000 tonnes of aviation fuel from Greece to southern Spain.’

‘His shipping fleet has been at the centre of a dispute with the Australian maritime unions over the flagging out of two bulk carriers working the domestic coastal trade.’

‘Occasionally, foreign flagged ships radio asking for directions to get back on course.’

‘The government is encouraging shippers to use cheap, foreign flagged and crewed vessels - a move that has ended up in the Federal Court in Melbourne.’

‘Only about 45 Australian flagged and crewed vessels remain in business.’

Phrases

fly the flag

1(of a ship) be registered in a particular country and sail under its flag.

‘At the time, all the major cruise lines were incorporated abroad, and every major ship they sailed flew the flag of a country other than the United States.’

‘Two ships appeared on the horizon flying the flag that I was taught to be of Spain.’

‘We were told it was a freighter flying the flag of neutral Portugal.’

‘It was therefore supposed to fly the flag of its nation of registry, i.e. Liberia.’

1.1also show" or "carry" or "wave the flagRepresent or demonstrate support for one's country, political party, or organization, especially when one is abroad.

‘he will be flying the flag for British fashion on the Paris catwalks’

‘He is waving the flag to show his support for better relations between Canada and the United States.’

‘By the same token, the Democratic Party will carry the flag of anti-clericism.’

‘He missed the chance to wave the flag for all who do not identify with any party and are simply proud to be Irish.’

‘Since these companies are busy waving the flag at the moment, one needs to recall how they described themselves during the past decade, as they dispersed production worldwide and planted their logos in many distant lands.’

‘And cheered on by nearly 38,000 delirious fans the 34-year-old Gloucester born star did a triumphant lap of honour, waving the flag of St George.’

‘People are afraid, and in waving the flag of pacifism - pacifism synonymous with anti-Americanism - they feel protected.’

‘The 19-year-old was born in New Zealand, but this season he is flying the flag of the land of his forebears, namely Holland.’

‘Great Britain had a realistic chance of the top prize in the men's under-60 kg judo, with England's Commonwealth champion Craig Fallon flying the flag.’

‘With the dust hardly settled, she was off again, flying the flag in the Far East as she reverted to a roving ambassador for the UK.’

‘Devonport frigate HMS Campbeltown has returned home to the West Country after flying the flag and making friends in Russia and the Baltic.’

put the flags outBritish

Celebrate.

‘it was Monday afternoon before we could really put the flags out’

‘temperatures are increasing again—that's why we're putting out the flags’

‘Oh, yes, we did put the flags out for the Coronation of Elizabeth II - but that wasn't a political show, was it, so it doesn't count.’

‘In fact, it was Monday afternoon before we could really put the flags out.’

‘When it is all complete perhaps we will put the flags out in honour of the Council and have an opening day.’

‘The other one is in prison and me and his mam put the flags out when that happened because he's safe, he's alive and he's warm.’

show the flag

(of a naval vessel) make an official visit to a foreign port, especially as a show of strength.

‘In those years, ships of all navies happily visited Indian ports, and Indian ships showed the flag in other ports of the world.’

‘This would hamper diplomatic efforts, reduce the U.S. Navy's ability to show the flag, and complicate logistics and supply for forward-deployed forces.’

‘Following a season in Europe, she crossed the Atlantic to New York and other East Coast ports to show the flag.’

‘One of the traditional diplomatic and political functions of the U.S. Navy is to represent and promote American imperial power by showing presence, going ashore, showing the flag.’

‘The SA Navy paid a visit to the city to show the flag.’

‘The navy provided coastal defense and ‘showed the flag ‘in areas such as the Mediterranean Sea and the Pacific.’

‘Deterrence, a centerpiece of Cold War diplomacy, encompasses maintaining credible forces and showing the flag at appropriate locations to deter an enemy's aggression.’

‘In the future the Navy, in keeping with objectives set before it, will be more active in showing the flag and protecting Russian interests in politically, strategically and operationally important regions of the World Ocean.’

‘Normally, the United States uses only one or at the most two carrier strike groups to show the flag in a trouble spot.’

wrap oneself in the flagNorth American

Make an excessive show of one's patriotism, especially for political ends.

‘This suited a number of interests, including a wildly unpopular Russian political class that quickly wrapped themselves in the flag.’

‘It's like a crooked politician wrapping himself in the flag.’

‘‘It would be counterproductive because it would trigger a xenophobic response and allow the violators to wrap themselves in the flag in an excessive spirit of nationalism,’ he said in a speech at John Hopkins University.’

‘Perhaps the most ironic aspect of the whole thing is that these are the first people to wrap themselves in the flag and pat themselves on the back for their patriotism.’

‘And they can wrap themselves in the flag and say they ‘support our troops’ all they like - but it doesn't change the fact that their program is to promote our defeat at the hands of our enemies for their temporary political advantage.’

‘Far too many of us wrap ourselves in the flag and say, ‘But I have a right to buy what I want, eat what I want, say what I want, do what I want, etc.’’

‘Rather than wrap ourselves in the flag, it might be more interesting to ask conservatives just what happiness they resist pursuing, if self-restraint is so good.’

‘The President will wrap himself in the flag, pray the business cycle goes his way and pretend his gestures are real.’

‘Instead he wraps himself in the flag and other wedge issues to ward off proper discussion about his dismantling of Australian egalitarianism.’

‘When trouble threatens, it's only natural to wrap ourselves in the flag, not because we're a vain people, not even because we're patriots, but because we want to feel safe, comforted.’